Conclusion
GTC Scotland will use the evidence from this report to inform our regulatory work, strengthen data quality, and work with partners to support trusted teaching and teacher supply planning.
While the Register remains broadly stable, the data highlights areas where continued attention is required, including:
- a gradual decline in registrants and registrations
- subject-specific pressures in secondary education
- fewer transitions from provisional to full registration
- issues affecting early-career retention.
Our leaving the Register survey also highlights the importance of understanding how workplace culture and structure influences teachers’ decisions to leave the profession,
including the impact of workload, employment stability, support, and reported workplace harm. We believe we will need to continue to monitor this area closely as we move into a period of significant change in Scottish education with the curriculum improvement cycle as well as qualifications reform imminent.
Reinforcing our 5 recommendations to improve teacher supply
Last year we made 5 recommendations to improve teacher supply. The evidence in this year’s report reinforces the need for sustained focus on these.
We continue to call for a national teacher supply strategy that provides a coherent, evidence-led plan for anticipating the teachers Scotland’s education system will need, where they will be needed, and how they will be recruited, supported and retained. This work must be embedded within wider education reform, ensuring that workforce planning is not reactive or fragmented, but forward-looking, strategic, and aligned with the needs of learners, schools and communities.
Taken together, the following recommendations call for targeted action to be taken to remove barriers to teaching being seen as an attractive career, while ensuring the education system has the teachers it needs, where they are needed most.
1. Focus on teacher retention
Our insights suggest again this year that teachers are leaving the Register sooner than expected. Tackling the issues impacting on retention is critical to maximise existing resource as well as improving the attractiveness of the profession.
This should include action to strengthen induction for new teachers (Read Reimagining teacher education in Scotland: teacher induction); improved support for early-career teachers as they develop confidence, expertise and professional identity; and teacher education and development that is genuinely career-long. Action must also be underpinned by an understanding of how workplace culture affects retention, wellbeing and the attractiveness of teaching as a career.
2. Increase teacher mobility
Providing teachers with the support they need to enhance their qualifications and gain additional registration is key. Additional registration should be actively promoted, well supported and properly funded, using the GTC Scotland registration framework that already exists. This would widen what individual teachers can teach, help meet system needs for a broad and meaningful curriculum and qualifications offer, and enhance opportunities for career progression. Any strategy to offer increased additional registration opportunities should begin with a focus on priority secondary subjects and recognise many teachers already have the required qualifications.
3. Hold firm on high teaching standards
Learning from other jurisdictions tells us that quick fixes such as developing alternative routes into teaching and lowering entry requirements has the opposite impact to that intended. They diminish the status and attractiveness of the profession. Any step in this direction further entrenches supply issues. The education system must uphold the professional standards that define high-quality teaching in Scotland. We are calling on all of those who work in and for our education system to deeply understand teaching standards and embed them in their work.
4. Understand our system’s nuanced requirements and where the gaps are
Scotland’s education system needs a clearer, more coordinated national understanding of which teachers are needed, where they are needed and when. Urgent action is required to improve the quality, integration and use of teacher workforce data so that decisions are informed, timely and targeted where they will have the greatest impact. Teachers also need clear, accessible information about where opportunities exist and how their qualifications and registration can support their own progression, as well as the needs of learners, schools and communities.
5. Deeply consider system structures
As a profession, teaching competes for graduates and also needs to be more diverse. Deep consideration of structures such as working practices (particularly opportunities for flexible and part-time work), time for personal development, support for career progression and wellbeing interventions is necessary to enhance the attractiveness and diversity of the profession. We believe that an expert on flexible working and these matters should be commissioned to report on how these arrangements could practically happen.
GTC Scotland will use the evidence from this report to inform our regulatory work, strengthen data quality, and work with partners to support trusted teaching and teacher supply planning.
While the Register remains broadly stable, the data highlights areas where continued attention is required, including:
- a gradual decline in registrants and registrations
- subject-specific pressures in secondary education
- fewer transitions from provisional to full registration
- issues affecting early-career retention.
Our leaving the Register survey also highlights the importance of understanding how workplace culture and structure influences teachers’ decisions to leave the profession,
including the impact of workload, employment stability, support, and reported workplace harm. We believe we will need to continue to monitor this area closely as we move into a period of significant change in Scottish education with the curriculum improvement cycle as well as qualifications reform imminent.
Reinforcing our 5 recommendations to improve teacher supply
Last year we made 5 recommendations to improve teacher supply. The evidence in this year’s report reinforces the need for sustained focus on these.
We continue to call for a national teacher supply strategy that provides a coherent, evidence-led plan for anticipating the teachers Scotland’s education system will need, where they will be needed, and how they will be recruited, supported and retained. This work must be embedded within wider education reform, ensuring that workforce planning is not reactive or fragmented, but forward-looking, strategic, and aligned with the needs of learners, schools and communities.
Taken together, the following recommendations call for targeted action to be taken to remove barriers to teaching being seen as an attractive career, while ensuring the education system has the teachers it needs, where they are needed most.
1. Focus on teacher retention
Our insights suggest again this year that teachers are leaving the Register sooner than expected. Tackling the issues impacting on retention is critical to maximise existing resource as well as improving the attractiveness of the profession.
This should include action to strengthen induction for new teachers (Read Reimagining teacher education in Scotland: teacher induction); improved support for early-career teachers as they develop confidence, expertise and professional identity; and teacher education and development that is genuinely career-long. Action must also be underpinned by an understanding of how workplace culture affects retention, wellbeing and the attractiveness of teaching as a career.
2. Increase teacher mobility
Providing teachers with the support they need to enhance their qualifications and gain additional registration is key. Additional registration should be actively promoted, well supported and properly funded, using the GTC Scotland registration framework that already exists. This would widen what individual teachers can teach, help meet system needs for a broad and meaningful curriculum and qualifications offer, and enhance opportunities for career progression. Any strategy to offer increased additional registration opportunities should begin with a focus on priority secondary subjects and recognise many teachers already have the required qualifications.
3. Hold firm on high teaching standards
Learning from other jurisdictions tells us that quick fixes such as developing alternative routes into teaching and lowering entry requirements has the opposite impact to that intended. They diminish the status and attractiveness of the profession. Any step in this direction further entrenches supply issues. The education system must uphold the professional standards that define high-quality teaching in Scotland. We are calling on all of those who work in and for our education system to deeply understand teaching standards and embed them in their work.
4. Understand our system’s nuanced requirements and where the gaps are
Scotland’s education system needs a clearer, more coordinated national understanding of which teachers are needed, where they are needed and when. Urgent action is required to improve the quality, integration and use of teacher workforce data so that decisions are informed, timely and targeted where they will have the greatest impact. Teachers also need clear, accessible information about where opportunities exist and how their qualifications and registration can support their own progression, as well as the needs of learners, schools and communities.
5. Deeply consider system structures
As a profession, teaching competes for graduates and also needs to be more diverse. Deep consideration of structures such as working practices (particularly opportunities for flexible and part-time work), time for personal development, support for career progression and wellbeing interventions is necessary to enhance the attractiveness and diversity of the profession. We believe that an expert on flexible working and these matters should be commissioned to report on how these arrangements could practically happen.
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